"The Guardian: 211,511 [copies] of which the BBC, including its staff, purchased 59,829" allegedly.

The comments are more interesting than the linked article.

“ 'Hello, it’s the BBC here. We’d like you to come on our programme and be angry, ranting and preferably racist.'

“All right, that’s not exactly how they put it, but they might as well. In the past six months, I’ve been asked on air to attack gay marriage, Lords reform and Sayeeda Warsi. The conversation always goes the same way. When it becomes clear that I’m not going to ham up the part of an irascible and incoherent Right-winger, they researcher breaks in impatiently with: “Right, let me just have a quick word with my editor and I’ll get back to you.”

“Newsnight and the Today programme are far more pluralist than they used to be.”

Oh yes. Then why do Gavin Esler and Kirsty Wark spend all the time in any interview with a Conservative trying to shout them down?

Mr Hannan, there is no need to praise the Guardian as “a very fine newspaper: high-minded, articulate, a touch self-righteous, but no less readable for that”.

In fact, the Guardian is a rag that is consistently sick, depraved, socialist and crude. So why not say so?

In an open society, corruption is self-correcting. The more corruption is exposed, the harder corruption becomes.

Since the Conservatives came to power, corruption is being widely exposed. This is positive, not a dread problem.

Corruption is at its most potent when it is hidden from public, business and political scrutiny.

“Perhaps because of its huge share of the world market, London is now the scene of many a global financial crime. The downfalls of Lehman Brothers, AIG and Bear Stearns can all be traced back to deals done in their London offices. The recent $2 billion trading loss at JP Morgan, the alleged $2.3 billion fraud at UBS and an unhealthy chunk of the Icelandic madness are all being linked to EC1. And this largely explains why the Libor scandal is going global: it was an utterly unregulated interest rate system that was used around the world, thanks to London’s global dominance.”

I'm glad to see the House of Commons parliamentary committee is getting down to cases far more effectively and efficiently than the eternal waffle produced by Levison. No wonder Ed Milipede and Ed Balls wanted a judge instead of a real investigation.

It is important to realise that banking has been captured by the management. This is a thing that often happens in near monopolies, a similar process being union capture.

Damn the customers and damn the owners (shareholders).

These banks have also accumulated salesmen at the top as they conglomerate and try to compete in the world markets. Such organisations will always tend to try to cut corners and to maximise profits in the war for market share.

These are the real and serious matters to be resolved.

The nonsense of blabberers Milliband and Balls deal with none of these real issues. Splitting up banks would make them unable to compete, of course. Meanwhile other actors are, anyway, trying to get a foothold in the banking markets, for instance, Virgin and the big food corporations.

These government-regulated companies are also competing against other national banks and the related government-subsidised fiat currencies. And they are major tax cows for the governments controlling them.

Just as national flag carriers once were the dominant passenger aircraft companies, banks seek power, control and monopoly. (The defence industries, which made both military and civil aircraft, unions and major government and employment issues were involved.)

Only a free market in banking will solve the worst of these problems. Just as was the case with the carriers’ free market, serious freedom in banking implies banking conglomerates issue their own money. This is not a power governments will give up easily!

“Labour signed up to an estimated £229 billion of PFI projects. That’s almost two and a half times the entire projected budget deficit for 2012 – 2013, or 16 percent of GDP.

“And all of it was off the books. This enables Labour supporters to argue that “Public sector net debt (as a percentage of GDP) FELL from the start of Labour’s time in government until the beginning of the global financial crisis”. But, if you include the PFI liabilities the Labour government signed us up to, any fiscal improvement during their time in office vanishes and this already thin argument does likewise.”

“The total value of the NHS buildings built by Labour under the scheme is £11.4bn. But the bill, which will also include fees for maintenance, cleaning and portering, will come to more than £70bn on current projections and will not be paid off until 2049...Some trusts are spending up to a fifth of their budget servicing the mortgages...Across the public sector, taxpayers are committed to paying £229bn for hospitals, schools, roads and other projects with a capital value of £56bn.”

It is interesting and even amusing to watch reality gradually seeping into stoned minds.

“Do we need an inquiry on the Libor scandal? No. The boom phase of every boom-bust cycle breeds this sort of excess and dishonesty. It is to be expected. All another banking investigation will conclude is that we need more curbs on the banks. That might cure the symptoms – quite probably by killing the patient – but it will not prevent the disease from coming back.

“Instead, we would be much better investigating and curbing the excess and dishonesty of the politicians who created the artificial, unsustainable boom in the first place, and thereby encouraged the banks – and we borrowers too – to make some pretty massive mistakes and do some pretty colourable things.

“There have been so many boom-bust cycles over the decades that by now we ought to be able to recognise the pattern of what occurs. In the boom phase, business is great. Money seems to be growing on trees. Loans are cheap. Every investment becomes affordable. House prices spiral upwards, so people take out bigger and bigger mortgages. Every deal and every business works brilliantly. Every risk pays off. Sure, there are some sharp operators lining their own pockets, but who cares, when everyone's having such a good time?”